The Double by José Saramago
I’ve always been fascinated by doppelgangers. (I’m sure this reveals something shocking about my psyche, please feel free to mail in your ideas!) I really enjoyed “Blindness”, so I was thrilled to discover Saramago having a go at doppelgangers.
This is going to be great! I thought.
I was wrong.
I’ve never seen a theme so utterly unexplored. A veritable Dickensian waif of an idea wandering aimlessly through the void. The author set up what might have been an interesting story, brought in a few characters, and then we all sat there waiting for something to happen… discretely checking our watches now and then. You could almost hear the Musak and the rustle of Nixon-era magazines. Strangely, Saramago was in the waiting room too. He entertained us passably with his occasional narration, but he gave the very distinct impression of a man putting in time. Like community service for a series of parking violations.
Much as I liked the device of the narrator, (who frankly, was the only one in the book with any personality or sense of humor–in fact, he was the only rounded character in the whole thing…) As I was saying, much as l liked the narrator, he certainly couldn’t fill, never mind redeem the book.
I wonder if the Nobel Prize people are slapping their foreheads. It’s much easier to give prizes to the dead — fewer surprises. It’s an odd thing that no matter what rubbish a Nobel winner comes up with, for the rest of his life he’s got this massive endorsement. I wonder if the Nobel committee ever tried to take the prize back? Or perhaps threaten authors with notes attached to bricks flung through windows: “The next one better have character arcs or say goodbye to your garden gnomes!”
Verdict: A terrible disappointment. Embarrassingly bad ending!
(Sometimes, after a book, I scoot around on the web to see what other people thought. Looks like a hell of a lot of other people were unimpressed as well.)
Tags: fiction